


Lauds

by sophiagratia



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-19
Updated: 2010-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiagratia/pseuds/sophiagratia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prayer for morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lauds

_Rakka-jah ut shalah marala, emah bohruh kana, uranok ralanon Bareil. Propeh van narah essukh shalah-kan vunekh._

*

Cross-legged in the tall grass, they prayed together that first morning. There on that quiet ground, in that bright air, prayer came more easily than she'd expected, more easily than she would admit to him.

'May I ask for a song?' His request broke their long, meditative silence. Surprised her, dulled the brightness of her mood, the brightness of the green day.

As her prayer, interrupted, escaped her easy reach, she didn't pause to cut the venom from her voice. 'I don't sing anymore.'

That wasn't entirely the truth. Kira caught herself, sometimes, singing the old war songs in her quarters, alone. And Kira couldn't stop herself dreaming the old war songs. Songs that lingered, tenacious songs, songs like scars. The thought was wrong for this still-new day, wrong for this monastery and this man.

'I don't... I don't sing those songs anymore. I mean.'

Bareil smiled his soft Vedek's smile, his steady Vedek's eyes studying the course of the riverbranch he'd trained to run through his vast garden.

'I was hoping for a hymn, actually, Nerys.' Just the lightest touch of humor, hiding just behind his gravelled voice.

Kira's shadowed mood opened brightly into a self-deprecating guffaw. 'I'm sorry, Bareil,' she laughed. 'Force of habit.' His smile deepened as he turned his gaze on her.

'Perhaps it's time for some new habits, Nerys.' She watched him, steady in the sunlight. Strength, clarity. He was beautiful.

She lay her wrists on her knees, opened her palms to the bright Bajoran sky. She rested her gaze on the river, on his river.

She reached, and a psalm of morning came. For a suspended instant, she held all the brightness of the day in her unscarred throat.

Her hymn rose clearly to greet the dawn she sang, and as she sang, she watched the water and Bareil's hands, open beside her.

*

_Propeh van narah essukh, shalah-kan vunekh. Emah bohruh kana, emah bohruh kana, uranok ralanon Bareil._

**Author's Note:**

> My (phonetically reconstructed) 'Bajoran' is of course Kira's prayer for Bareil in the episode [Shakaar](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Shakaar).


End file.
